{"product_id":"jakob-von-gunten-isbn-9780940322219","title":"Jakob von Gunten","description":"The Swiss writer Robert Walser is one of the quiet geniuses of twentieth-century literature. Largely self-taught and altogether indifferent to worldly success, Walser wrote a range of short stories, essays, as well as four novels, of which \u003ci\u003eJakob von Gunten\u003c\/i\u003e is widely recognized as the finest. The book is a young man's inquisitive and irreverent account of life in what turns out to be the most uncanny of schools. It is the work of an outsider artist, a writer of uncompromising originality and disconcerting humor, whose beautiful sentences have the simplicity and strangeness of a painting by Henri Rousseau.\u003cp\u003e\"As a literary character, Jakob von Gunten is without precedent. In the pleasure he takes in picking away at himself he has something of Dostoevsky’s Underground Man and, behind him, of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau of the\u003ci\u003eConfessions\u003c\/i\u003e. But—as Walser’s first French translator, Marthe Robert, pointed out—there is in Jakob, too, something of the hero of the traditional German folk tale, of the lad who braves the castle of the giant and triumphs against all odds. Franz Kafka, early in his career, admired Walser’s work (Max Brod records with what delight Kafka would read Walser’s humorous sketches aloud). Barnabas and Jeremias, Surveyor K.’s demonically obstructive “assistants” in \u003ci\u003eThe Castle\u003c\/i\u003e, have Jakob as their prototype.\" -- J.M. Coetzee\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWonderful . . . eccentric. \u003cbr\u003e— \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Sun\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe moral core of Walser’s art is the refusal of power; of domination…. Walser’s virtues are those of the most mature, most civilized art. He is a truly wonderful, heartbreaking writer.\u003cbr\u003e— Susan Sontag\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place.\u003cbr\u003e— Hermann Hesse\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRobert Walser (1878–1956) was born into a German speaking family in Biel, Switzerland. He left school at fourteen and led a wandering, precarious existence while writing his poems, novels, and vast numbers of the “prose pieces” that became his hallmark. In 1933 he was confined to a sanatorium, which marked the end of his writing career. Among Walser’s works available in English are \u003ci\u003eBerlin Stories\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eJakob von Gunten\u003c\/i\u003e (both available as NYRB classics), \u003ci\u003eThirty Poems\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Walk\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Tanners\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMicroscripts\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Assistant\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Robber\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMasquerade and Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003cbr\u003eand \u003ci\u003eSpeaking to the Rose: Writings, 1912–1932\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChristopher Middleton (b. 1926) is a poet, essayist, and translator. He teaches Germanic languages and literature at the University of Texas at Austin and has translated numerous works, including \u003ci\u003eJakob von Gunten\u003c\/i\u003e by Robert Walser.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304037470437,"sku":"NP9780940322219","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780940322219.jpg?v=1767730319","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/jakob-von-gunten-isbn-9780940322219","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}